<:27> Various manufacturing
industries which depended largely on the splendid water power of Chittenango
Creek were early established. Cazenovia was noted for manufactures
at a day when other towns were only making slow progress in agriculture.
In the summer of 1794 the
first grist mill was built by the Land Company (Comment).
Wheat was bought in Whitestown and other places, ground, and the flour
sold so low as only to cover cost and charges for the benefit of the settlers.
This mill and a nearby brewery were burned down some years later.
Before the first saw mill was built one mile south of the settlement, the
boards to finish the log cabins were brought from Capt. Jackson's saw mill
in Manlius. The road from Cazenovia to Manlius was first opened for
the purpose of carting the boards.
Other industries (Comment)
were the tanning of hides, making of potash, gathering of ginseng and making
of nails. Then followed two cloth-dressing establishments, two carding
machines, a brewery and distillery; trip-hammer works, a woolen mill, a
hat and chair factory, an oil mill, a fulling mill, a shoe manufactory
and a lock manufactory. A paper mill was established in 1801 and
there was then a great demand for potash kettles. A sash, door and
blind factory, a mower and reaper foundry, a morocco factory, other saw
and grist mills were conducted. Still later, the manufacture of glass-ball
traps, cabinet ware, butter, cheese, wagons, cider and gunpowder was carried
on. The merchants of the thirties, forties and fifties did a large
business. There was then a home market for every pound of wool, butter
and cheese and every bushel of grain. Factories lined the outlet
of the lake and Cazenovia was a live business town. Railway communications
with the outside world instead of lumbering stage coach and the advent
of steam and electricity as motive powers in place of water took away the
factories. Since then, manufacturing in Cazenovia has been discouraged
with the idea of keeping the village strictly residential. Agriculture
has been encouraged and developed to a high degree. Smooth meadows,
well cultivated fields, cleanly kept woodlands, first class farm buildings
and the evidences of wealth everywhere, on the hills as well as in the
valleys, proclaim skilled training in agriculture. Cazenovia is one
of the largest dairy towns in Madison County.
Today finds an electric
light plant, a canning factory and a telephone system; a machine shop which
makes a milk bottle capping machine and special machinery, and a diepress
company, which turns out milk bottle caps, milk tickets, tea-tags and tea
package ends. Three blacksmith's shops, <:28> handed down from
one family to another, are still doing a little business although the advent
of the automobiles and tractors leaves few horses to be shod. The
first blacksmith shop was built of logs. No tongs could be found
amongst the smith's tools so Elnathan Andrews, the first blacksmith employed,
had to go to Morehouse's Flats [NY 173 about a mile east of Jamesville],
twelve miles off, to borrow a pair.
The village [in 1928] also
boasts a Post Office, a National Bank, five churches, a library, several
fraternal organizations, a town hall, three hotels, a union school, and
the far-famed Cazenovia Seminary; a weekly newspaper, a fire department,
a "Village Green" [actually a Public Square and a Village Green], three
cemeteries, a golf course, two railroad connections, improved roads, beautiful
trees and an air of culture and social distinction found in few small communities.
The first Post Office in Cazenovia was established by Mr. Habersham,
then Postmaster General. The country was so little known that he
would not establish an office without security that it should not become
a charge upon the general Post-Office. Col. Lincklaen and Mr. Forman
gave the required security so Mr. Forman was appointed postmaster and the
office was kept in his store. The office now requires, besides the
postmaster, an assistant and three clerks.
The first bank was the Madison
County Bank, organized under the safety fund act, March 14, 1831.
Today it is the Cazenovia National Bank, with a million and a half dollars
on deposit.
The village supports an
excellent public library containing over eighteen thousand volumes.
The library undoubtedly had its beginning in the "Free Reading Room Association,"
formed in 1873 by a small group of people who secured a room, free of charge,
in the Burr block, and drew up regulations to the effect that the use of
the reading room should be free to any person, resident or stranger, without
any fee, who would conform to the regulations as published. As the
association was designed to be free to all, it depended on the contributions
of the citizens who felt an interest in whatever served to promote the
intelligence and good morals of the community. Contributions of newspapers,
periodicals and the loan of pictures were acceptable. There was to
be an annual membership fee of one dollar (Footnote
IV-1). Five months later the rooms were closed for the
summer, due to lack of funds and attendance. The next month, Mr.
Krumbhaar gave his sail-boat to be sold for the benefit of the Reading
Room, thereby insuring the reopening of the rooms for the winter.
There appears no further record of the existence of the association.
During the next summer, the Seminary Reading Room was opened to the public.
In January, 1886, an organization
formed and incorporated for the <:29> purpose of having a circulating
library, free to all, where, by a small payment, people could have the
use of the books at home and in the library rooms. It was started
without any capital, depending on friends to assist by money or books.
One hundred volumes were soon pledged and several persons became life patrons
by the payment of $10. The same room that had been offered the Free
Reading Room Association was again offered free of charge. Mr. R.J.
Hubbard gave a deed to the present library property to the trustees of
the Library on November 30, 1892. There is no record stating when
the Library was transferred to the present building, but it is presumed
it was moved from the Burr block at that time. Subscriptions and
benefits have helped maintain the expenses. The village appropriated
$100 to the Library in 1898. Since 1899, $200 have been given each
year, but being insufficient to meet the requirements of the present needs,
the village voted in March, 1927, to raise by tax $1,000 yearly for the
support of the library. A portrait of Theophilus de Cazenove, presented
to the village by his great-grandson, hangs in the Library.
The Masonic order closely
follows in the footsteps of the pioneers in every part of the country.
During the fall of 1798, eight Masonic brethren of this section conferred
with each other and arranged for the organization of United Brethren Lodge
No. 78, which charter was granted January 5, 1799. Robert R. Livingston,
one of the signers of the warrant, was one of the committee which drafted
the Declaration of Independence, and after-wards administered the oath
of office to George Washington as the first President of the United States.
The Lodge convened May 9,1799, it being the first lodge in the county [then
Chenango County]. The nearest lodge west of here was at Canandaigua.
The early meetings of the lodge were commenced in the afternoon and continued
during the evening, each member present contributing to the evening's entertainment.
Supper was twenty-five cents. The charter of U.B. Lodge was surrendered
in 1839. The anti-Masonic agitation had begun at this time, bringing
days of storm and stress; political parties were divided, life-long friendships
sundered by reason of it. Lodges were closed, charters surrendered;
the order seemed to be ruined. But an order that had survived through
centuries of time, an order which was spread throughout the world, was
not to be destroyed by a local combination of politicians and fanatics.
A chapter of Royal Arch Masons was organized in Cazenovia in 1825.
The questions of Masonry and Slavery were rocks on which nearly every Northern
church split. In 1828, three Baptist brethren were tried for being
Masons. Two were acquitted after having given satisfactory promises
not to further affiliate with the order. The church passed a resolution
not to admit any more Masons to membership. In 1866 the works of
Masonry were resumed in this place; in that year a dispensation was granted
and in 1867 a warrant was granted to Cazenovia Lodge 616.
Owahgena Lodge, I.O.O.F.
was organized in 1845. The lodge went <:30> down in 1860 when
everything belonging to it was destroyed by fire. Owahgena Lodge
No. 450 was instituted and chartered in 1876; Lincklaen Lodge No. 900 was
instituted in 1906. The Daughters of the American Revolution organized
in 1896; the Knights of Columbus in 1906. The Eastern Stars organized
in 1908; Rebecca Lodge, I.O.O.F. in 1910 and the American Legion in 1920.
The sum of $4,000 was voted
in 1854 for building a hall for village meetings. The village was
to have right of perpetual use of the basement for the fire department.
The Free Church building [on the site of the present Cazenovia College
Theater on Lincklaen Street], was bought, enlarged and refurnished.
The plan of the hall called for an ample stage, adjacent retiring rooms,
a hall with comfortable seats for 500 persons on the second floor.
This was to be used for fairs, concerts, elections, political meetings
and public assemblies of all kinds. The first floor was to be occupied
by a room for justices' courts, a jury room, supper room, etc. This
was called the Concert Hall. The Casa Nova (New Hall) was rebuilt
from the Concert Hall in 1885-1886 and burned down in 1895. Cazenovia
Hall, or Town Hall [the present Theater], was built in 1897 by a stock
company at a cost of $12,000. The village corporation leases from
the association a commodious office for its business and records. The hall
is used for public entertainments.
The record of possible tavern
keepers (Comment) in the first quarter of the
century is not complete, but it is known that one Ebenezer Johnson kept
a hotel in 1799, which was located on the south side of the "Green," and
in 1803, Hiram Roberts, a blacksmith, added to his trade the keeping of
a tavern. The Cazenovia House has a history going back to about 1810.
It was known for forty years or more as the "Drover's Hotel," it being
the stopping place of many cattle drivers passing back and forth along
the Cherry Valley Turnpike. Cattle were then taken on foot down the
turnpike to Madison and thence on to [Albany and thence on to] New York.
The hotel was known in every quarter and ranked high among country hotels.
Simon C. Hitchcock kept the hotel in 1824 and was regarded a first rate
landlord. He was also a Seminary trustee. Lemuel White kept
a hotel on the south side of the square. He was a very agreeable
man and kept a very good house.
The Lincklaen House (Footnote
IV-2) was built in 1835 by a stock company. It was operated
from 1853 to 1877 by a Mr. [Oliver] Jewell and was the stopping place of
the stage-coach. It was purchased in 1916 by Mr. Henry Burden who
remodeled and modernized it. Many noted guests have been entertained
by the hotel. What was formerly the Lake House, now a furniture store
and undertaking establishment, was in operation in 1865. This may
be [no it is not] the same hotel as that kept by Samuel White in 1824 and
the Madison County Hotel which was on the south side of the square in 1879.
The hotel kept by Mr. <:31> Hitchcock on the north side of the square
in 1824 doubtless is the same as the "Hickok's Tavern" spoken of elsewhere,
now the Cazenovia House. Shoreacres, on the east side of the lake,
was converted from a private residence to a popular hotel in 1923. There
are three or four attractive tea rooms.
The first newspaper in the
village was "The Pilot," started in 1808. Since then there have been
numerous publications, some short and some long lived. The Whigs,
Tories, Republicans and Democrats have all had their say. The present
Cazenovia Republican was established in 1854.
Cazenovia has always had
an efficient fire department and has not suffered as have many villages
from the destructive element (Comment). At
the first meeting of the village corporation in May, 1810, $100 were voted
for the purchase of a fire engine, and a month later, it was ordered that
twelve certain men be firemen, and that they be called out and exercised
in using and examining the engine at least once a month, which should be
on the last Saturday in each and every month; the time of meeting on said
Saturday to be at sun two hours high in the afternoon until sunset.
Non-attendance at the meetings without satisfactory excuse made the person
so absenting himself liable to a fine of 50¢ and expulsion from the
company. It was ordered "that within 90 days, every merchant and
tavern-keeper in the village furnish himself with five leather fire buckets
holding eight quarts and every other owner or occupant of any other house
or building furnish himself with one bucket and that the owner of a bucket
procure his name to be put on the same and that each and every owner of
a bucket or buckets keep the same hung up near the outer door of the house
or store and be appropriated to no other use except in case of fire and
that every person neglecting or refusing to comply with this ordinance
within the time limited shall be subject to a fine of twenty-five cents
for each week thereafter for such neglect or refusal, to be collected as
the law directs."
In 1812 the first engine
house was built at a cost of $55. Four years later the fire company
disbanded and the engine was sold for $15. In 1822, residents of
the village were ordered to provide ladders long enough in each case to
reach the roof of the dwelling; [and] the engine house was sold at auction.
In 1827, the first hooks and ladders were provided for at a cost of $20.
In 1829 a new fire company was organized with thirteen members and a new
engine. When this company disbanded in 1831, a new one was formed
of eighteen members and in 1834 a $700 engine was purchased. In 1835,
three sufficient reservoirs holding about 10,000 gallons each were constructed,
as was an engine house at a cost of $92. Then a hook and ladder company
was organized. In 1844 a second engine at a cost of $550 was purchased
with hose and other appurtenances. In 1855 a school house [situated
on the corner of Sullivan and Seminary Streets] was purchased for an engine
house at a cost of $400. The Owahgena Fire Co. was first organized
in 1862. Deluge Fire Co. was formed on the same date <:32> and
a new engine purchased for $1,150. A steel fire bell costing $60
was mounted on the cupola of the engine house in 1863. Such a bell
was not a matter of necessity, there being few fires, but it would serve
many purposes. Alarms were also affixed to the bells of the Presbyterian
and Methodist churches, with cord attachment. The present alarm is
a horn blown by compressed air [and this system is still in use in 1999!].
Two additional reservoirs were constructed in 1873 near the Methodist church.
In 1874 it was "voted that
active firemen shall henceforth be exempt from the poll tax." The
next year, the fire, hook and ladder and hose companies disbanded and three
new companies organized with a total membership of 86 members. Then
the Owahgena Engine Co. No. 1 and Deluge Engine Co. No. 2 organized in
1877. Ledyard Hose Co. No. 1 organized in 1879. The equipment
consisted of two hand engines, two hose carts and 1,000 feet of leather
hose. The introduction of the village waterworks system in 1890 rendered
the fire engines practically useless. The first chemical engine was
purchased in 1920 at a cost of $2,500. This was found to be too small
to be of much use in the country, so during the summer of 1925 a larger
combination chemical engine and pump was purchased at a cost of nearly
$6,000 raised mostly by public subscription.
The fire department now consists of the Owahgena Hose Company and the Cazenovia
Hook and Ladder Company [both of which are still active in 1999]. Concerning
military service, Mr. Forman wrote; "In the autumn of 1793 we were enrolled
in Major Moses DeWitt's Battalion. He resided near James Ville (Jamesville)
in Manlius. We had orders to meet and choose officers for a company
and to make our returns to him in order to obtain the military commissions.
The following winter we went to Pompey Hill to receive our commissions.
The first military duty by the Cazenovia Company was performed in the White
Oak Grove at the foot of the lake. The next summer we were "warned
to appear on lot No. 33 in Pompey Hollow, armed and equipped as the law
directs for a Battalion training." (Comment)
Accordingly we met in the oaks at the appointed place well armed and equipped
with good hickory clubs and a very few muskets. We formed and marched
in military order as far as the swamp at the foot of the lake - this was
the end of any road - where we halted and orders were given for every man
to make the best of his way through the woods to the appointed ground and
report himself to his Captain if he did not get lost in the woods.
Some man observed that their little captain would get lost. The next
training we were ordered to appear armed and equipped as the law directs
for a general review and inspection at Morehouse's Flat in Manlius."
Gen. Van Horne was then the adjutant general of the state. This training
closed all military connection with Onondaga County. "The
ensuing season, our population was so much augmented that we formed a separate
Battalion in Cazenovia, John Lincklaen, Esq., Major <:33> Commandant.
I brought up from New York 112 complete stand of arms, and cartouch boxes;
77 light infantry hats, with silver eagles and L.I. Cyphers, all completely
trimmed, and sold them at cost and charges. So we soon gained great
laurels for our military prowess and received theapplause
of Adj. Gen. Van Horne. In due time as the population increased,
a new brigade was formed in Madison County, Gen. Jonathan Forman, commanding
- he was an old Revolutionary officer. This battalion now formed
a regiment under Col. Lincklaen." The
military brigade was one of the great institutions of the early days.
For the use of the militia when their headquarters were made in Cazenovia,
a fine parade ground was laid out about 1810. This parade ground
now "The Green" at the head of Hurd street, was much in the public eye
and mind in those days and for many succeeding years. It was on this
groundthat the general training was held each year.
Here they used to gather from all the contiguous country, the "Floodwood
Militia," they were called, and there devote the day to military training
under command of General Jabish Hurd. In early times, the Indians,
it is said, were accustomed to gather in considerable numbers and with
much interest watch the maneuvers of the men on the Green. On some
occasions, it is said also, the Indians requested permission to join in
the general training. We
were an important place in the War of 1812. War meetings were held;
a company was raised here for the frontier. When several sturdy and
patriotic Cazenovia citizens were called into active service, the Green
was a school of military acting, and more, it was a school of military
tragedy, for it trained men for war. On one occasion during this
time a large troop of armed and equipped Indians passed through Cazenovia
on their way to Sackett's Harbor to join the army in defense of their country.
They camped for a little time on the old Green and then departed singing
war Songs as they went. Along in these days, too, the out-door shows
that visited Cazenovia pitched their tents on the Green; many plays were
staged. There was a certain character in town who had a most pronounced
antipathy to all enterprises of this nature. This character was a
colored woman who had positive notions on social economy, and she never
hesitated to voice them. So when these show people gathered on the
Green, she would go into their midst and there harangue them for a half
hour at a time on the wickedness of their coming to town to take money
from poor people. Not unlike those days, we now have the Redpath
Chautauqua "show" which takes considerable money out of town but gives
a fair educational return. May
1861 saw the departure of twenty-four volunteers for the war. They
were of Capt. Todd's Company. The inhabitants of the village gathered
at the Lincklaen House corner to see the leave taking and bid farewell.
When on the second of July, 1862, the President of the United States <:34>
issued a call for three hundred thousand men to serve for three years,
or during the war, the young men of the village and in the Seminary at
once formed companies, and went through the manual of arms, drilling in
the intervals of their work and studies. A war meeting was held on
the night of July 26 for the purpose of providing suitable bounty and filling
the quota of men from the town. The Free Church was crowded.
Sufficient sums were subscribed to furnish a bounty of $25 to each recruit.
Eleven volunteers enrolled their names that evening, and these formed the
nucleus of Company K of the 114th Regiment. New Woodstock then added
several hundred dollars to the bounty fund. Thursday, August 14,
1862, was a day to be remembered. The inhabitants again gathered
at the Lincklaen House corner while the company of 101 young men formed
into line; prayer was offered, congratulations and leave taking of friends
followed, and the procession moved off, amid the firing of guns and the
ringing of bells to join the regiment at Norwich, where they were mustered
into the United States' service. During the war, Cazenovia furnished
371 soldiers and 2 seamen. During the World War, 179 men from the
town of Cazenovia answered the call to the colors. On Armistice Day,
November 11, 1926, Cazenovia Post No. 88 of the American Legion, formally
presented to the village a captured German 150 mm Howitzer, secured from
the War Department as a war trophy. It is mounted on a concrete base
on the south side of the public square, opposite the intersection of Sullivan
with Albany street, pointing north. The artillery piece bears a bronze
tablet placed on the base by the Legion, which reads:

"Presented to the Village of Cazenovia

by

Cazenovia Post No. 88

AMERICAN LEGION

In commemoration of those

who served from this community

In the Wars of The

United States."

There
were three early burying-grounds - one over the hill from the West Shore
Station, past the old golf links; one on the Burr farm on the west side
of the lake, and one at the west end of the Green, either side of the First
Presbyterian Church. The three present cemeteries are the Evergreen,
or Protestant; the Catholic and the South Cemetery (Comment). A
nine hole golf course, "the sportiest and most scenic in the state," was
opened in the spring of 1925 on the west side of the lake. The course
on the Fairchild property, which had been in use many years, was abandoned
at that time. The
citizens of the town were requested to meet at the Lincklaen <:35> House
in March, 1864, to take into consideration the propriety of taking measures
for the construction of a horse railroad from the village to Chittenango
Depot. "Such a road would be an advantage to the town - all kinds
of business would be benefitted, real estate would advance in value; manufacturers
would use the valuable water power now going to waste and the beautiful
village would become a summer resort to many." However, the advantages
of a horse railroad were not considered sufficient to pay for the outlay.
A subscription paper was circulated and nearly funds enough pledged to
defray the expense of the survey for a steam power road. In 1870
the Lehigh Valley R.R. was built to Canastota. It now runs between
Elmira and Canastota. In 1872 the so-called Chenango Valley R.R.,
now a part of the New York Central property, was built to Syracuse.
It runs between Earlville and Syracuse. Electric trains were put
on the Lehigh the latter part of 1926. Auto bus service between Syracuse
and points south and east of Cazenovia was inaugurated two or three years
previously (Comment). When
Cazenovia was first settled, it belonged to the town of Whitestown.
The way this singular occurrence happened, Whitestown once included all
the county west to the military lands, and all new towns when set off,
had their boundaries, so town meetings and elections had to be attended
at Whitestown. In 1795 Cazenovia was erected into a Town - it comprised
an area nearly equal to that of the whole of Madison County. The
first town meeting was held in April, 1795. Among the "rules and
regulations" adopted on the occasion, was one - "that no man shall bring
cattle into this town that does not belong to him to run at large on the
commons, except working oxen and milk cows, on penalty of five pounds to
the use of the town." One would suppose that a town of such dimensions,
and only two years from the hand of nature, would have "commons" enough
for all the cattle that could be brought on, unless their neighbors up
the Missouri should drive on their buffaloes. Cazenovia was the first
village incorporated in Madison County, the date of the act being February
7, 1810. The first corporation meeting was held in May, 1810. From
the time of the formation of the county to this date, Cazenovia had been
looked upon as a suitable location for the county seat of the Courts of
Justice, and had become so temporarily; consequently, the first criminal
punished for murder in Madison County, was executed here. This was
a wife poisoner, [Alpheus Hitchcock, of now Town of Madison, hung September
11, 1807] who had been confined in Whitestown jail, tried at a court held
in a barn in the town of Sullivan, whence he was brought to Cazenovia and
hung, the gallows being erected about half a mile east of the village [in
the field opposite the Town & Country Plaza on NY 20 East]. The
county seat proper was located here in 1810, not, however, without some
opposition from rival towns. A brick court-house was erected at a
cost of upwards of $4,000 on the site where the Seminary Chapel now <:36>
stands. The first courts were held here in 1812. The county
seat was moved to Morrisville in 1817. A
"United States Telegraph" line was constructed between Chittenango and
Cazenovia in October, 1865. Soon after, the Western Union brought
a line in, and in a short time the two loops consolidated, in favor of
the Western Union. Previous
to 1868, street lamps were installed, being kerosene lamps in a lantern-like
arrangement on top of a post, at alternate corners. A note in the
village paper says: "We are often met with the inquiry why our street lamps
are not lighted on dark nights. We are informed that the wages of
a person for lighting them are so comparatively high that the village fathers
do not feel authorized to make the expense." A petition from the
Chenango Street residents for light resulted in the lighting of the lamps
again. The lamp-lighter was the delight and the target of the children,
who pelted him with snow-balls in the winter and tipped his cart over in
the summer. Even grown-ups were known to "borrow" his chimneys.
The electric light system was installed in 1898. The
village, feeling the necessity of a place nearer than Morrisville for the
safe-keeping of those who imbibed too freely, voted $600 in 1869 for a
lock-up. The
Cazenovia Band was organized in 1852. A band stand was erected in
the square in front of the Cazenovia House in 1873. Succeeding years
produced bands of more or less merit until about 1926 when the bandstand
was torn down. The
first telephones were installed in 1895. In
1803, the census of the village was 100 inhabitants. The state census
of 1925 recorded 1686 inhabitants. Last, but not least, the town clock marks
time with the historian. It is one of those things which is taken
for granted, its origin never questioned. The clock in the Seminary
tower and in the Presbyterian Church tower gave up the struggle long ago,
but the town clock [in the Methodist Church] goes on forever. The
earliest record of the clock (Comment)
is contained in an editorial of the Cazenovia Republican
of November 5, 1862, which reads; "The old town clock, which for so many
years has graced the spire of the Methodist church, is a wreck. It
is so badly damaged that repairs are impossible and it is better to put
up a new and reliable clock than to attempt to patch up an old and worthless
one. The old clock is the first iron town clock (and the only one
of that pattern) built by Mr. Jehiel Clark. It was never a very good
one, but by the expenditure of a good deal of money and trouble it has
been made to do useful service for about twenty years. The question
of replacing it by another will be voted on at the coming charter election.
Our people have too long enjoyed the benefits and conveniences <:37>
of a town clock to consent to be without one now. It is certain that
it will be voted to buy one, but the question is, what one? Mr. J.W.
Marshall has one of the handsomest clocks ever made, built on a contract
for a thousand dollar clock. It is jeweled throughout and well worth
the thousand dollars originally asked for it. This splendid clock
Mr. Marshall offers put up and keep in running order one year for $500.
It is not likely that we shall ever have another opportunity to get such
a clock for so little money. It was built by Mr. Marshall for the
late Mr. A.W. Van Riper, who had so much confidence in its accuracy as
a time- keeper that he offered to give it to the village if on trial it
should vary fifteen minutes within a year. Mr. Marshall will do the
same if it is preferred to his other offer[.] Town clocks can be
bought more cheaply than this. Mr. Marshall has them for sale, but
they are much dearer at the price charged for them than to the large clock.
The cheap ones will not last so long and will not keep so good time while
they do last. Mr. Marshall's clock can be seen by those interested
at his shop, and we have a large engraving of it which we shall be happy
to show. Voters within the corporate limits of Cazenovia ought to
inform themselves on this subject, as it will come up for decision at the
charter election to be held next month." Two
weeks later the paper carried this editorial: "Citizens of this corporation
should be making up their minds as to how they will vote on the town clock
question. Mr. Marshall's clock is up and noting the time accurately.
It is a beautiful piece of workmanship, of brass, highly finished, the
pivot-holes and verge pallets jeweled, and, in brief, the clock is provided
with every improvement that experience and ingenuity can suggest.
There is some opposition to the purchase of this clock, because an iron
one can be bought for less money. Undoubtedly an iron clock might
be bought that would keep time well for a few years, but it is unreasonable
to suppose that an iron or steel surface will withstand friction as long
as a jeweled one. The result with the iron clock would be that within
a few years we should have just such an unreliable time-keeper as the old
clock was, and after expending two or three hundred dollars for repairs
and attendance, we should have to throw away the iron machine and pay a
thousand dollars to replace it with just such a clock as we have now offered
to us for $500. It is always bad policy to buy an inferior article
because it is cheap!" At
the election on December 2, 1862, by a resolution, the trustees were authorized
to hire the clock for a year and to call a special meeting to purchase
it during the year if deemed by them proper. Records show that $50
rent for the clock was paid in 1866 and again in 1868. It is possible
that $50 a year was paid from 1862 until 1870 when the clock was bought
for $400. It had been placed in the tower of the First Methodist church.
When the new church was built, a meeting of the electors was <:38> called
to vote on the proposition that $1,000 be raised by tax to be paid for
the permanent use of a tower in which to place the clock, and that $250
be raised to pay for necessary fixtures and the expense of placing the
clock in the tower. Both of these propositions were defeated.
Then at a meeting of the Trustees of the Methodist church, the following
preamble and resolution were adopted, viz: "Whereas, All negotiations between
this Board and the citizens and trustees of the village in relation to
the town clock have failed to secure to us any aid in erecting a suitable
tower for the clock, therefore, Resolved, That we do hereby grant permission
to the trustees of the village to place the town clock in the tower of
our new church without compensation." At a meeting two weeks later
of the Board of Trustees of the village, on motion of G.H. Atwell, it was
unanimously resolved that the offer made by the Trustees of the First M.E.
Church tendering to the village the use of the tower of said Church in
which to place the village clock, without compensation, be gratefully accepted.
Two hundred and thirty dollars was to he raised by tax to pay the expenses
incurred in placing the clock in the tower of the M.E. Church where it
has been since 1874. The face of the clock, on the outside of the
tower, is above the bell which in turn is above the clock machinery.
The pendulum of the clock hangs 18 feet long; it is a wooden stick with
a lead disc about 1 foot in diameter on the end. The striking weight
weighs 2400 pounds and is hung by a cable; the weight that runs the clock
weighs 1400 pounds and is hung by a rope. The hands are turned by
a wooden stick about an inch square and about 30 feet long. The clock
is wound once a week but would run two or three days longer. The
bell which was in the first church, was put in the new church and has served
as church bell and to strike the hours of the clock. "The town clock
regulates the sun."

FOOTNOTES

Footnote IV-1
Among the names of the twenty-eight men who joined the Association
is that of G.H. Atwell, the writer's grandfather.

Footnote IV-2
The bricks used in the construction of the Lincklaen House were made
in Pompey Hollow by Abraham Tillotson, great-great-grandfather of the writer.

Comments and Notes by Daniel
H. Weiskotten

November 1999

IV Industries and Institutions, page 27

The first grist mill was built by the Holland Land Company in late
1793 or early 1794 on the creek behind the "Meadows" just south of the
Village. The water power at this site was soon found to be insufficient,
and the mill was abandoned. In 1802 the building was removed and
used as a barn by John Lincklaen. A new grist mill was built at the
Lake Mills on Mill Street in the village about 1796. Samuel Hayward's
saw mill, built at "Rippleton" by the Company in 1793, was called the "Industry
Mill", was the first saw mill. The second saw mill was built in the
following year (1794) on the south side of the creek at Mill Street in
the Village. These mills, later known as the "Lake Mills" were originally
called the "Prosperity Mills."

IV Industries and Institutions, page 27

Atwell gathers a full century of industries together in a misrepresentative
lump of "early" industries - many were in operation before 1830, but the
lock; sash, door, and blind; glass ball; mower and reaper; morocco manufactories
are mid- to late 19th century enterprises. The mills within the village
were powered by three dams: the Lake Mills on Mill Street, the East Bridge
at Albany Street, and the Paper Mill at Clark Street - none were on the
"outlet" of the lake. The paper mill was first established in 1810
and the potash kettles, so valuable to the early settlers, were not, as
far as I am aware, manufactured in Cazenovia, and the gunpowder mill was
located several miles south of the village at Belmont in the 1890s!
Railroads first came to the village in 1869, and the decline of the water-powered
industries began shortly thereafter and was in severe slump by the 1880s.

IV Industries and Institutions, pages 30
to 31

The earliest Tavern in Cazenovia was that operated by opened by the
Holland Land Company and operated by Elijah Risley in 1794. Ebenezer
Johnson became the proprietor in 1796 the Company built a new tavern, which
still stands at 34 Albany Street. Johnson and several members of
the Day family (never Michael day!) operated this tavern until 1816.
Hiram Roberts owned land
on the northeast side of the Public Square, now a grocery store, as early
as 1798 and by 1802 had opened a tavern in conjunction with his blacksmith
shop. In 1806 he sold this to Lemuel Kingsbury who, in 1809, built
the giant building that stood until the 1950s and was known as the Cazenovia
House. Simon C. Hitchcock was one of the best known proprietors (among
at least 26 landlords) and was there between 1823 and 1830.
The Madison County Hotel
stood on the southeast side of the Public Square, at 36 Albany Street.
This important tavern was constructed in 1807 by Eliphalet S. Jackson and
was in operation until 1836. Lemuel White (not Samuel as Atwell writes)
was the proprietor from 1816-1828. The Van Brocklin house at 42 Albany
Street is formed from a large portion of the hotel and other parts were
cut off and moved elsewhere.
Construction of the Lincklaen
House was begun in the spring of 1835 and completed in the fall of 1836.
The bricks for building the hotel, which still stands, were made at the
kiln of George Thrasher about a mile south of the village. Some bricks
may have come from Atwell's kiln, but their origin in Thrasher's kiln is
well documented.
The Lake House stood at
48 Albany Street (Oneida Savings Bank) and may have evolved out of a boarding
house operated by Lanson Lake in the 1850s. The Lake House was opened
in 1865 and operated until as late as 1910.
It is surprising that Atwell
makes no mention of the many and varied boarding houses which once dotted
Cazenovia's streets. A few had survived the World War I era as tea
rooms.

IV Industries and Institutions, page 31

Cazenovia has indeed had great luck in regards to major fires, but
its history is not without conflagration. A large block on the north
side of the business district on Albany Street and also several stores
on Lincklaen Street were destroyed in two fires in 1859, the central portion
of the north side of the business district was destroyed by two other fires,
in the spring and again in the fall of 1871, and a third a few weeks later
burned the Baptist Church. 1871 was not a good year for fires as
the Cazenovians faced their disastrous fires at the time they were reading
about the destruction of the cities of Chicago and Boston by fire.
In 1895 a fire destroyed the Casa Nova Theater on Lincklaen Street.
In 1937, after Atwell had
written her book, a large fire destroyed several stores on the south side
of Albany Street, and in 1947 and 1949 two separate fires burned most of
the old buildings at Cazenovia College.
Still, it is clear that
Cazenovia, in comparison to many older communities, has been pretty lucky
when it comes to fires - due in large part to the heroic efforts of our
volunteer fire companies and assistance of our neigboring communities.
A well defined (but definitely unintentional) pattern of major fires every
11 or 12 or so years, beginning with the destruction of John Lincklaen's
first house in 1806, was broken in 1984 when the fire department saved
the Presbyterian Church from certain destruction and the community has
continued with a good track record since that time.

IV Industries and Institutions, page 32

The second Battalion Training took place on an old Indian opening near
the intersection of NY 92 (Syracuse Road) and Temperance Hill Road.
A late prehistoric Onondaga Indian Village was located nearby and the Indians
kept returning to this area well after settlement and kept the ground cleared
for their fields. In the new settlement this would have been one
of the larger clearings in the forest and a natural parade ground.

IV Industries and Institutions, page 34

The first two burial grounds Atwell mentions are the Farnam Cemetery
on Grassy Lane and the Burr Cemetery on West Lake Road.
The early burying ground
associated with the Presbyterian Church was actually two different plots.
The Church, between 1804 and 1828, originally stood at the head of Hurd
Street a few inches north of the northern edge of Emory Ave (in front of
the present Cazenovia Middle School). While a large square plot of
ground surrounded the church it is believed that the cemetery was restricted
to the eastern side of the church, not the west as Atwell says.
The cemetery associated
with the church was also not the first cemetery in the community.
In about 1798 a small school house was built at the corner of Sullivan
Street and Emory Ave (near where 39 Sullivan Street stands) and on the
ground to the west of this was where the first cemetery was located (now
occupied by the properties at 39 Sullivan Street and 1, 3, 5, and 7 Emory
Ave. This first cemetery was kept open until about 1807 when Otis
Ormsbee, who had converted the little school house to a carpenter's shop,
gave noticed that any bodies interred there were to be removed. When
Ormsbee had purchased the shop is not known.
The Presbyterian Church,
which stood west of Ormsbee's land, was dedicated in February 1806 and
in 1807 a deed was given for the land around it. John Lincklaen reserved
a 50 foot square plot of land, probably located on the high ground in the
northeast corner, for his family. The commoner's burials would have
been clustered in the eastern part of the property as the western side
was away from the community and would have been less desirable. The
area most likely to have been used as the cemetery lies today under the
lawns and houses of 9 and 11 Emory Ave.
There are numerous early
burial grounds in the vicinity, and Atwell mentions but a very few of them.

IV Industries and Institutions, page 35

The Cazenovia & Canastota, Rail Road (C&CRR), was incorporated
January 22, 1868 and completed to Cazenovia in September 1870. The
Cazenovia and DeRuyter Rail Road (C&DRR) was incorporated January 26,
1872 and was consolidated with the Cazenovia and Canastota Rail Road as
the Cazenovia, Canastota, and DeRuyter RR (CC&DRR) August 28, 1878.
The line to DeRuyter was completed in 1878.
This line was acquired by
the Elmira, Cortland, & Northern Rail Road (EC&NRR) about 1884
and was then merged with the Lehigh Valley Rail Road Co. (LVRR) February
17, 1905. Passenger service stopped not long after World War II and
the last train ran through Cazenovia in 1967.
Construction of the Syracuse
and Chenango Valley Rail Road line from Syracuse, through Cazenovia and
Erieville, and thence south through Chenango County, began in 1870 and
the line reached Cazenovia in June 1872, being delayed by the necessity
of constructing a 1,831 foot tunnel under "Beckwith's Gap" on the west
side of the lake. The line closed about 1947.

IV Industries and Institutions, pages 37
to 38

The clock purchased from Jehiel White was originally in the steeple
of the Presbyterian Church, and was placed there by the village shortly
after May 1820. By the time of the next Village meeting in May 1821,
when the village voted to pay Clark $160.00, the clock was described as
having been "put up + used for some time past." At an unknown date
this first clock was transferred to the spire of the original Methodist
Church and in 1862 was replaced by a new clock made by Justice W. Marshall.
When the present Methodist Church was erected in 1872 the clock was placed
back in the tower where it still can be found today. Sporadic attempts
over the past few years to get it working again have met with limited success.
The original hands of this clock were stolen during a recent tower renovation
and new hands were crafted by village resident Robert Bennett.